By Darren Gilbert

Die Ontwaking is the directorial debut of acclaimed production designer Johnny Breedt. Media Update caught up with him recently to find out more about the film and what audiences can expect.

What is Die Ontwaking all about?

It is essentially about a serial killer on the loose in the northern suburbs of Cape Town and a rookie detective Ella Neser, who is determined despite her lack of experience, to put an end to the killings.

Die Ontwaking is based on the first book of the ‘Abel’ trilogy by Chris Karstens. How different is the film to the book?  

I did try to stick to the book where possible, but of course there are always going to be differences as books are seldom written in a cinematic way. In books more is left to ones imagination as opposed to film, where we have to create it visually for the audience.

I decided to eliminate most of the historical references in the book, especially the Boer War scenes as it just created too many sub-stories. I stayed true to most of the characters names with the exception of one of the killer’s suspects, as it sounded too similar to the lead detectives name. I may have changed some of the characters a little from the book, but without it having a negative impact on the story.

Die Ontwaking has been hailed as a game-changer for South African film. Why do you think this is so?

I really tried to change the way South African audiences think about local films. Afrikaans films are mostly romantic comedies, to a lesser degree period dramas or musical films. Often theses are made with loads of “soapie” stars or singers as their actors, in order to attract audiences.

My film is by no means the first thriller in Afrikaans, but I do believe that it has created a clear mind shift in what we could be watching in future, as far as local content goes. We would gladly watch American genre films, but why not South African ones? The reasons are that not many good ones are being made at the moment, but I have no doubt that this will happen over the next few years.

Die Ontwaking is deliberate in it’s style of cinematography, design and casting and we feel that it could even relate well to foreign audiences, especially in Europe.

This is your directorial debut. What was the experience like?

The experience was incredible and although this was my first as director, I have been designing films form many years alongside fantastic mentor such as Anthony Minghella, Phillip Noyce and Carrol Ballard. I guess that made it not feel as if it was my first film in a sense, but what it created was an absolute “lust” to direct more films.

Why did you choose Die Ontwaking as your first film? 

Firstly I wanted to do an Afrikaans film as it was easier to raise the funding and I had tried to get a number of other English scripts made into films before, without success. The problem is that you are really competing with the rest of the world in English, whereas a good Afrikaans film could do well internationally as a foreign language film.

What were some of the greatest challenges in directing Die Ontwaking?
Shooting a feature film in 18 days is virtually impossible and that is probably something I will not attempt again. The other challenge was making a film about a serial killer, but not turn it into a “Slasher” horror film. Lastly it was challenging to cast this film as I had no casting director and a very limited budget.

I had to, in a very short time, audition the actors. But having said that, I was fortunate to know some of the bigger names in the film and they agreed to do the film based on our relationship and on the script. Actors are starved to do other genre films. Some of the smaller roles were more of a challenge, but we discovered some really great new talent that I think will be the future stars.

Do you have any highlights in directing Die Ontwaking?

I knew very little about the editing process and I was dreading this. I always thought that the filming would be the best part and although I really enjoyed that facet of the process, I have to say that editing was where I realised a lot happens.

A great editor like Mandy Roberts just takes the film to places where I did not know it could go. I really learnt the most from this process.

What can audiences expect?
This is not a happy film – here people swear, they cheat on one another and some even die. Expect something very different from other mainstream Afrikaans films. I guess one could say this is an Afrikaans film, shot in a European cinematic way, but set in a typical Afrikaans environment.

When can audiences expect to see Die Ontwaking?

It opens the Eden Film Festival in George on Friday, 30 October and closes the Horrorfest in Cape Town on Thursday, 5 November and then goes to cinemas nationwide on Friday, 26 February 2016.

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